Attack of the Do-Nothing Democrats
Written for The Cincinnati Beacon.
State Representative Catherine Barrett has announced her candidacy for the State Senate after a lackluster 8 years in the state House. This leaves the people of house district 32 and Senate district 9 needing some real representation.
Eric Kearney inherited Mark Mallory's seat for the State Senate in spite of hardly being a member of the party. His main qualification for the seat is that he can raise a lot of money. He has given money not only to Democratic candidates but to ultra conservative Republicans Kenneth Blackwell and Joe Deters.
Challenging him for that Senate seat is State Rep. Catherine Barrett has proposed 4 bills in her 8 year career. While she has taken the time to co-sponsor 124 bills she is not one of the co-sponsors on HB 263; a bill to provide universal health care for all Ohioans. A bill that would be especially important to her district, as many people under her representation are poor and lack proper health care coverage. In contrast, one of her 4 proposed bills was a motion to designate March as:
2nd Chance of Life: Saving Babies, Supporting Families Month.
That is a touching gesture, but is sentimental at best.
With Barrett leaving her seat to challenge the Republicrat Eric Kearney, the house seat is vacant. Hopefully some prominent Democrats who have a chance at victory will step up and run in the primary.
Last weekend I got the chance to hear speeches from excellent city council candidates Reverend Damon Lynch, III and Christopher Smitherman. Both finished just short of election to city council, but would find more success in state elections. Both have a grip on the problems facing greater Cincinnati and how to fix them. With two minute speeches in a field of 31 candidates it is hard to understand what a candidate is about. Hearing these candidates have the chance to go in depth was a refreshing experience. This showed me either of them would be successful in a primary or a head to head race as compared to an at large debacle of dozens of candidates.
Both of these men are candidates of action which disturbs some, but would serve as a pleasant interruption to the sleepy representation we have had. A house district is much smaller than the whole city of Cincinnati (only about 100,000 people). They would need less money to get their positive message to the voters.
Those names are fresh in my head and I'm certain there are others out there who could do the job. We need people who are in touch. We need people of action. Democrats deserve candidates who are actively fighting for the values of their party.
State Representative Catherine Barrett has announced her candidacy for the State Senate after a lackluster 8 years in the state House. This leaves the people of house district 32 and Senate district 9 needing some real representation.
Eric Kearney inherited Mark Mallory's seat for the State Senate in spite of hardly being a member of the party. His main qualification for the seat is that he can raise a lot of money. He has given money not only to Democratic candidates but to ultra conservative Republicans Kenneth Blackwell and Joe Deters.
Challenging him for that Senate seat is State Rep. Catherine Barrett has proposed 4 bills in her 8 year career. While she has taken the time to co-sponsor 124 bills she is not one of the co-sponsors on HB 263; a bill to provide universal health care for all Ohioans. A bill that would be especially important to her district, as many people under her representation are poor and lack proper health care coverage. In contrast, one of her 4 proposed bills was a motion to designate March as:
2nd Chance of Life: Saving Babies, Supporting Families Month.
That is a touching gesture, but is sentimental at best.
With Barrett leaving her seat to challenge the Republicrat Eric Kearney, the house seat is vacant. Hopefully some prominent Democrats who have a chance at victory will step up and run in the primary.
Last weekend I got the chance to hear speeches from excellent city council candidates Reverend Damon Lynch, III and Christopher Smitherman. Both finished just short of election to city council, but would find more success in state elections. Both have a grip on the problems facing greater Cincinnati and how to fix them. With two minute speeches in a field of 31 candidates it is hard to understand what a candidate is about. Hearing these candidates have the chance to go in depth was a refreshing experience. This showed me either of them would be successful in a primary or a head to head race as compared to an at large debacle of dozens of candidates.
Both of these men are candidates of action which disturbs some, but would serve as a pleasant interruption to the sleepy representation we have had. A house district is much smaller than the whole city of Cincinnati (only about 100,000 people). They would need less money to get their positive message to the voters.
Those names are fresh in my head and I'm certain there are others out there who could do the job. We need people who are in touch. We need people of action. Democrats deserve candidates who are actively fighting for the values of their party.
